3.3 Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) Model of...
SFL is adopted to analyse how disciplinary identities are constructed in the different organisation and density of discourse features.The detailed explanatory profile of lexicogrammatical categories is powerful to uncover how different meanings are grammatically realised in given or unknown contexts, and how meanings and contexts will be recuperated from the grammar without the knowledge of the contexts.More specifically, speakers or writers in given or unknown contexts of situation share expectations of the ways of meaning expressing in language, and these shared expectations will be encoded and understood by their addressees immediately.Also, the original contextual meanings may be recovered from the text itself, because ‘knowledge of the context allows us to make predictions about the lexicogrammar of a text’ (Butt et al., 2014).Data analysis from the searching of lexicogrammatical patterns in a corpus of the generalisations about the field (experiential pattern) and tenor (interpersonal pattern) of the context of situation can then be made.
The SFL analysis model thus contributes to the meaning unfolding of group membership affiliation in the semantic-discourse dimension, in terms of 1) the density of ideational meanings, 2) interpersonal relationship in interaction and, 3) language development in the changes of field.The concrete analytical results and discussion can be found in Chapters 6 and 7.